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Asia > Thailand > Bangkok > Bangkok > Articles > Honeymooning in Bangkok

Honeymooning in Bangkok

by Tim Elliott

Only in Bangkok, a city of ten million Buddhists, could people sit in a three hour traffic jam and not want to kill one another

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Only in Bangkok, a city of ten million Buddhists, could people sit in a three hour traffic jam and not want to kill one another. And only in Bangkok could you, in the space of a day, see Buddhist monks, street girls, spirit houses, a Thai kickboxing match and the spectacularly beautiful house of a one-time American secret services agent come silk entrepreneur.

I’d come to Bangkok on my honeymoon, on a three-day stop-over in between heading south to lie very still on a beach while drinking radioactively coloured cocktails. But it wasn’t long before I realised that my wife and I would need more time in this city, that you could spend a lifetime in Bangkok and still feel that you had stuff to see. Obviously, I had less than a lifetime, so I had to move fast if I was going to the ‘Kok any justice at all.

Established as the capital in 1782, Bangkok has blossomed — or mutated, depending on your point of view — from a modest rural capital into a grinding Asian megacity; fast, steamy, crowded and chaotic. By far and away the biggest city in Thailand and one of the biggest in the region, Bangkok acts like a magnet on the rest of the country, sucking in resources and people, with fascinating results. The first morning I spent in a wooden barge cruising down the Chao Phraya River, Bangkok’s main waterway, the banks of which are lathered in an eclectic mix of rudimentary stilt houses and multi-storey high-rises. It’s the 17th century on the doorstep of the 21st, and yet somehow it all seems to work.

Hoping off at one of the many rickety piers along the riverbank, I hailed a tuk tuk and hared off through the city streets, the driver managing to simultaneously smoke a cigarette and keep one hand permanently planted on the horn while squeezing his skinny vehicle at high speed through the hairline gaps in the traffic, before depositing me, miraculously still alive, at the temple complex of Wat Pho. Built in the 16th century, Wat Pho is the oldest and largest wat in Bangkok, not to mention the most spectacular. It’s as if everything, from the prow-like gables to the walls themselves have been dipped in gold. Everything was shining and twinkling in the stingingly hot sun; check out the reclining Buddha, 46m long and 15m high, with a gold leaf finish and mother-of-pearl inlay around the eyes and feet.

Next stop was the house of the now deceased Jim Thompson, an ex US secret service operative who fell in love with Thailand when serving here during World War II. Thompson’s house is worth visiting for its phenomenal architecture and stunning art collection, and because the guy has an amazing story, founding a business empire on Thai silk before mysteriously disappearing in the jungles of Malaysia.

It was at this point that a compromise had to be reached between my wife and I. I would accompany her on a shopping foray of she would come with me to a kickboxing bout that night. Heading to Chinatown, however, we discovered that shopping in Bangkok is a body contact sport in its own right. Never before, save perhaps for a fourth-class Indian train compartment, have I experienced crowds like Chinatown’s. Still, the shopping was excellent. Cheap, colourful, and plentiful, this is the place to come for everything from gold jewellery to incense, antiques to smoked duck, dried fish to fireworks. (For gold, check out The Yaowarat, one of the main Chinatown thoroughfares.)

Then, at last, it was the kickboxing. Even if you’re not into contact sports, you must see one of these bouts, one of the most surreal and intense experiences you’re likely to have in Thailand, with thousands of spectators gathering at Ratchadamnoen Stadium to watch an ancient ritual that involves lightning fast reflexes and bird-like grace. Don’t miss it. Like the rest of Bangkok, it’s a knockout.